Does the Carney government have a labour problem? Union leaders speak out as WestJet strike looms

WestJet’s CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech said in a statement they still hope to reach a deal, but the company also began to park planes Friday and cancelled 81 flights on Saturday. 

“We will continue to work around the clock to come to an agreement that provides value and meaningful improvements for our cabin crew and is sustainable for our company.” 

Back to work?

With the Air Canada flight attendants, the government used a controversial section of the Canada Labour Code, section 107, to order them back to work. Alia Hussain, the local CUPE union president who represents the WestJet flight attendants, said they’re concerned the government will intervene because they have a history. 

“It’s not just Air Canada that went through government intervention on 107. It’s also the ports. It’s Canada Post and it’s also CPKC and CN,” she said. “Where in the federally regulated sector have they not stepped in?”

Most of those interventions happened during the Trudeau government, which used the law to send port, postal and railway workers back to the job, arguing in all of those cases the ripple effects were simply too big on the Canadian economy. 

But Prime Minister Mark Carney was in office when the section was used against the Air Canada flight attendants, an order they ignored before eventually reaching a deal. Section 107 gives the government the power to send striking workers back to work and push the issues to binding arbitration to maintain “industrial peace.” It was rarely used before the Liberals first used it in 2024, but it’s more expedient than back-to-work legislation, which can often take days to get through Parliament. 

‘An outcry from the labour movement’

Lana Payne, president of Unifor, the country’s largest private sector union, said if the government intervenes again it should expect pushback.  

“They will have an outcry from the labour movement. There’s no doubt in my mind,” she said. 

Canadian Labour Congress vice-president Siobhán Vipond said she is optimistic the government won’t force the flight attendants back to work, but if they do, the labour movement will respond. 

“If that’s the road they take, then we are going to take action and push back because we are a movement that protects rights,” she said. 

Vipond said there have been some encouraging signs from the government, but what is needed now is action to reform the use of section 107 and get on with creating jobs. 

Reviewing the rules

The government is reviewing section 107, as part of a broader consultation on the Canada Labour Code that coincidentally ends Sunday. It is also looking at timelines around bargaining, creating a new federal mediator role with more powers and potentially changing how much warning either side would have to give for a strike or lockout. 

Federal labour laws only cover workers in certain sectors like railways, ports, airlines and telecommunications, and the vast majority of union deals are reached without any intervention. 

The Star asked for an interview with Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hajdu or Secretary of State for Labour John Zerucelli, but neither was available this week. In a statement, Hajdu’s office said the consultation is about improving workplaces.

Political fallout

“Canadians expect the federal government, employers and unions to work together to ensure that federally regulated workplaces remain safe, fair, productive,” the statement said. “The federal government will always protect the rights of Canadian workers, including the right to strike and the right to collective bargaining; the strongest deals happen at the table.”

While the government is reviewing section 107, Hajdu’s office didn’t answer a direct question about whether they would consider using it now but insisted their goal is to ensure workers are employed and have their rights protected.  

“The government will continue to invest time, energy and financial supports to ensure a strong labour force, and we will do that with unions by our side.”

Derrick Hynes, the CEO of Federally Regulated Employers – Transportation and Communications or FETCO, an industry group that represents airlines, telecom companies and rail lines, said the need for this modernized labour code is clear. 

Hynes said he favours the special mediator proposal in particular but generally believes there is a need for a new approach to the large impact strikes that shutdown ports, railways and airlines. 

‘Impacts on Canadians are immediate and huge’

“In these extraordinary circumstances where the national public interest is at risk, the impacts are so huge that Canadians are affected more broadly that we need alternative options, like alternative tools that can be accessed to help these parties get a deal,” he said. “When airlines, ports, railways, telecoms shut down, the impacts on Canadians are immediate and huge.”

Payne, who sits on the prime minister’s advisory council on Canada-U.S. relations, said the labour code review seems to be about making it easier on employers. 

“We are in a crisis, a crisis that has been created by Donald Trump, and now we have quite a number of large corporations in Canada, and they’re kind of organizations who are just trying to exploit a moment.”

She said the government shouldn’t make it easier to push workers around just because Trump is pushing Canadian companies around.

“They need to resist these kinds of claims from employers that because we have instability created by Trump that the solution is to roll back workers’ rights.”

Conservative MP Kyle Seeback sent a letter to Hajdu this week, urging her to “respect the collective bargaining process and allow the parties every opportunity to reach an agreement at the bargaining table.” 

Warning of consequences

NDP MP Don Davies, the party’s labour critic, said the government’s policies have been consistently anti-union and that is going to cost them.  

“I don’t think a government can take such a consistently corporate anti-labour policy position time and time and time again without facing any consequences,” he said. 

The NDP introduced a private member’s bill earlier this year that would eliminate section 107 from the labour code entirely, taking the government’s power to intervene away. 

Davies said the Liberals are showing union workers who they are. 

“Their actions speak quite loudly that they’re more than willing to violate workers’ bargaining rights and tip the bargaining table scales in favour of management.”

The limits of arbitration

When strikes are sent to binding arbitration, arbitrators typically look at industry averages and aim to find common ground between the two sides. But that can make it difficult to resolve more complex issues like the unpaid work dispute at the heart of the conflict between WestJet and its flight attendants. 

Hussain said her members need real change in this contract and they hope the government stays out of the way. 

“The average flight attendant over the past 10 years at WestJet went from being a tenured flight attendant, went from comfortable to not comfortable at all and likely living off credit cards again.”